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Robert Matzner

Robert Matzner

Robert Matzner was 12 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. They took all the adult men, including Robert's father, for work details and labor camps as they swept through the country. Robert and his mother stayed in their home until 1942, doing the best they could to survive in a time when Jewish people were not allowed to work. Then the Germans emptied the country of Jews, separating 13-year-old Robert from his mother. He was sent, along with other able-bodied youths, to a labor camp. His mother and the rest of women were taken to Auschwitz. The concentration camp was only about a 30-minute drive from Robert's hometown.

At his first labor camp, Robert helped build Germany's Autobahn. He never saw any of his relatives again.

"We didn't know what happened to our parents or anything. Wherever we were needed, they took us. We were slave labor."

All told, Robert labored for five years in six camps, including one charged with laying railroad tracks needed to transport Nazi armaments around the country.

In his last camp, the war was coming to an end in Europe and the Russian forces were approaching. When they were about two days away, according to the prisoners' guesses, the Nazis decided to evacuate the camp and move all their prisoners with them.

They made everyone march instead of leaving them there, "So we wouldn't be liberated. It was an excuse for them—they were retreating already."

They walked for three days across Germany with no provisions and ended up at Buchenwald. It was March, the prisoners were sparsely dressed for the weather, and they were forced to go about 20 miles per day.

"There was no food, no water, no anything. Whoever couldn't walk, had no more strength to walk, they shot them."

When they arrived at Buchenwald, they found it immensely overcrowded because all the retreating Nazi forces from all over the area retreated there, bringing their prisoners with them.

They were there for two days, and Robert ended up sleeping in the bombed-out ruins of an aircraft factory next to the camp. It was two more days with no food and no water.

After the two days, Nazis caught wind that the Americans were coming toward them from a different direction, and evacuated again. "They called it the death march from then on."

In groups of 1,000, the prisoners were marched on foot to Bavaria, in the middle of Germany, in the hopes the Allies weren't far enough inland to reach them.

"Each group of 1,000 went in that direction. They had dogs along with them, specially trained dogs. This was wholesale killing, I would say. People were not able to walk anymore and they were shot."

"I still walked and walked. Three days I made it with them. My feet were frozen and swollen, I couldn't walk anymore. I figured this was the end. People who couldn't walk just laid down and waited for the bullet. It was, if you had a choice, a better choice than continuing to walk."

On the third day, the whole group stopped to rest in an open field. It was April and the field was covered with snow. Robert remembers that the surviving prisoners just fell down where they stopped, piling up on top of each other to keep warm. The Germans built fires for themselves, but the prisoners were on their own.

At the end of the following day, the prisoners spent the night in a big barn. There were only about 300 people left alive, and they were ushered into the barn where most people dropped to the floor as soon as they entered. Before entering the barn, he overheard a local man telling the guard that the U.S. forces were approaching.

"When I walked in there, I noticed haylofts with bales of hay." There was no ladder to get up to the lofts and no steps, but there were support posts holding the loft up. The guards turned off the lights and the prisoners were left in complete darkness.

"The only way I could ever survive this march would be to hide in this barn and wait for the U.S. Army to enter the village. It was a question of life or death for me right there. I knew if I lived to walk one more day, I was absolutely not able to continue marching anymore and would be shot."

In his desperation, Robert was able to summon a little more strength and shimmy up the pole to reach the hayloft. "I guess it was a miracle. I climbed up the pole and reached the top floor. People under stress do a lot of things you don't expect people to do."

After he reached the loft, he rested a long time, then started feeling in the dark for the bales of hay he had noticed earlier.

"I found the bales and dug into one of them. I buried myself into this bale. I just waited."

In the morning, the guards awoke the prisoners by shouting and firing their guns into the barn.

"People were getting hit. The SS Guards started to scream at people to come out, people who could went out. When no one else came out, at least a hundred people were still inside. Some died during the night, and some were alive but unable to walk out. Then they brought the dogs in to chase out anyone still living. I'm right on top above all of it. I can hear all this commotion. I have nothing to lose—I know if they find me they'll shoot me too. There was no ladder, no steps, the Germans didn't realize anybody would be up there. I heard all this commotion, the shooting and people screaming while they're dying, the dogs barking. For years, these things were in my dreams. It was hell, really."

When the Nazis were ready to leave, they took everyone — living and dead — with them, leaving Robert alone inside the bale of hay.

"American forces were approaching. The German guards knew they'd be shot if they were caught. They're trying to go as fast as they could. The good guys were coming, I knew that. I thought if I can make it now, I might have a chance to survive. I stayed there all day. I was afraid to come out. German civilians lived there. I was afraid they would take me, call the SS guards and hand me over to them. It would mean instant death.

"I stayed in the bale all day and night. The following day, I dug out. I was trying to figure out (what I was going to do) up there, when the door opens and the farm lady comes in. She sees me standing there on top of the hayloft. She starts screaming. She got scared of me. I don't blame her. We were outlaws—that's what (the Nazis) were telling them."

The woman ran out to tell her family, and very soon her husband and another farmer carrying pitchforks came in. Robert crawled back into his hay bale, but the Germans produced a ladder, climbed up to the loft and began stabbing the hay bales, looking for him.

"I didn't wanted to get stabbed, so I surrendered." They took Robert into the farmyard, which was right along a highway. The road was filled with Nazi troops who were retreating from the U.S. forces. The farmers refused to give Robert any food, and one of them hailed three passing Nazi soldiers and handed Robert over to them.

"I thought that was the end. Three German soldiers and me, walking together. We joined the retreat.

"One German says 'Let's kill him.' Another one says 'Save your bullet—you may need it."'

On their way, they passed by German soldiers hanged by the neck from trees, wearing signs declaring them deserters.

All along, Robert expected a bullet to find him at any time. But the Nazi soldiers couldn't do it without a direct order.

"They stopped an officer (and asked) what they were supposed to do with me. All they have to do is pull the trigger. They wanted to have someone tell them to do it."

Instead that officer told them to take Robert to the train station in a little town called Hof, two miles away, where Nazi forces were all heading. They were expecting rail transportation to escape the approaching Allies, but when they arrived they found the train station in flames, the railroad tracks bombed to pieces and German civilians looting.

"There was no authority there. No trains were running. Bomb craters were everywhere. These three German soldiers were debating what to do and I just stepped aside and began mingling with the crowds. The soldiers could not shoot at me, with all the crowds of German civilians.

"The German army was just standing around scratching their heads. The Army had been ordered to leave for this station. I moved over to a different group of looters and kept walking with them. German refugees and the soldiers were stuck there from the air
raids. A big part of the German forces were trapped there. My desire was to get lost in this crowd and that's what I did."

After eight days on the move with no food and a failed escape attempt, Robert simply walked away from his fate. He ended up hiding inside a rail car.

"Hundreds of suitcases were laying around all over there because of the explosion—the baggage cars were bombed. I looked through the suitcases and found civilian clothing that fit and shoes. I was a civilian from then on.

"The next morning, I heard shooting, I saw everyone running, I'm hiding in a railroad car. I looked out to see Germans leaving the railroad station and different soldiers taking over. I see they had different uniforms, I knew they were not German. I move out and put my hands up. I look like a German. An American soldier approaches, rifle in hand. I said I am a prisoner. I tried to make him understand. A U.S. sergeant comes up, he spoke Polish to me, he tells me he is from Chicago. He let me go."

The Americans chased away the German civilians who had been loitering and looting, and the German soldiers surrendered. Robert had nowhere to go, and the Americans allowed him to stay in the train station.

There were 24 U.S. soldiers in the outfit, assigned to guard the train station.

"They let me stay there for a whole week. We got to be friends. They gave me food. I remember they brought turkey to me one day. They were giving me whatever they had. I was a young kid. A skeleton. I will never forget it, never. It was the first human reaction somebody really gave me after five years."

After so long without food, Robert's body reacted violently to sudden nourishment. He was also exhausted physically and mentally, and slept most of the time. The Americans mostly left him alone and let him recover a little.

"You can't describe it to people who didn't go through it. You try to make them understand, but...

A different unit was coming to repair the station and the Americans who saved Robert's life were pulled out. He went into town, to Hof, and registered with civilian German authorities. In Europe at the time, anyone who moved to a new town had to register there to be recognized as a resident. The mayor, police and other authorities then were put into place by American forces, so Robert didn't have to hide his nationality anymore. He registered as a Pole and was assigned a room and given ration cards for food. He was assigned a room in a hotel used temporarily to house displaced persons and got roommates.

"We were all recovering. This is how I survived."

Robert ended up working for the United Nations in a supply depot that received food and supplies destined for the displaced persons camps, stored them and distributed them to the various refugee camps that were established in the aftermath of the war.

Robert kept that job and stayed in Hof from 1945 to 1950, when he decided to come to the United States.

"There was no home for me to go back to. I didn't want to go back. I have a soft spot for this country. I figure they were good to me and I belong here."

Before he left Hof, he married Lucille, a girl he knew as a child and miraculously found after the war was over. Their first son, Richard, was a baby when they came to America, and they had two more children after they settled in Sheboygan.

Robert remembers his first glimpse of his adopted country, when he saw the Statue of Liberty from the ship that was carrying him to the United States.

"This lady up there, she looked really nice. Everyone went on deck. It was like a dream."

Robert has lived now 53 years in Sheboygan. He worked, raised his family and retired here. Looking back at his experience in his youth, he still is unable to grasp the idea that he survived this ordeal while thousands of prisoners all around him did not. He and his family were very happy to live in Sheboygan and in the United States, his adopted country. Robert died on Aug. 23, 2016.

"We are proud to be U.S. citizens and to call this our homeland."

Yom Hashoah

A special program during the regular service was held to commemorate the Holocaust. Of special interest was the story told by Robert Matzner. His story follows: It is fitting for us to remember the Holocaust by observing this special day and also remembering throughout the year.

Yom Hashoah, Remembering the Holocaust
By Robert Matzner

When I think back to the time of the Holocaust, this is what comes to mind: A column of one thousand Jews, prisoner of Nazis, marching out of the concentration camp Buchenwald.

They are forced to leave, because in the distance there is faint rumble of artillery fire. American forces are advancing steadily in this direction. The SS guards, afraid to be taken prisoners and punished, are pulling out and are taking the Jews along to deny them their liberation.

The month is April, just like now, but the year is 1945, and among that group of cold, ill, and hungry people is an eighteen year old boy. The prisoners, weak from starvation are not good at marching. They are slow. The guards use whips, rifle butts and curses to make them walk faster. Some men stumble, fall to the ground and are shot in the head. Others who are not able to keep up with the rest of the column, are also shot. Now the guards sic the dogs on them.

The large police dogs leap at the prisoners. They sink their teeth in a man's leg and he falls to the ground, badly hurt. Unable to get up, he is shot...The death march continues. In the evening they are ordered to lay down in a farm field. It is covered with snow and they spend the night huddled close together, to keep warm.

The next day at dawn, the deadly march continues. The young boy is marching on. He scoops up a handful of snow from the ground and eats it, to stop the terrible thirst. He and the rest had no food or drink since they left the camp. On the third day of the march, the column is much smaller. Many men were shot, unable to keep up. Men who are too weak to walk, simply give up. They drop to the ground and wait for the bullet. It is a swift way to end the suffering.

Day four. The young boy is by now completely exhausted. His shoes have wooden soles and his feet are swollen and raw. Every step is painful and he has trouble to keep up with the group. He knows his end is very near, but he stubbornly keeps going as well as he can. That evening the column reaches a small village and they stop in front of a barn. By now, out of thousand men who left Buchenwald, about 400 remain. They are ordered to enter the barn for the night.

The SS guards lock the gates and turn off the lights in the barn, leaving 400 men stumbling around in the dark, trampling the weak and the ones who were resting on the floor. There are no toilets, and people "go" wherever they are standing or lying.

Before the light goes out, the young boy notices a hayloft on the opposite side of the huge barn and many bales of hay on the top. In the darkness, he crawls over the bodies of the sleeping people, until he is underneath the hayloft. He is searching for a way to get up there to hide, but he can not find a ladder or stairs. All he sees are wooden poles, the size of telephone poles supporting the floor above him.

After a few unsuccessful attempts, he manages to climb up the pole and he reaches the top of the loft. He must rest for a while, very weak from this feat. He was not sure he could pull it off, in his present weak condition.

Dawn is approaching and the boy realizes he does not have much time left. He crawls to the back wall and digs a deep hole in the hay, then he crawls inside the hole and covers himself up. He is aware if he is discovered, he will be shot right away, but if he continues to march next day, he has not enough strength to do it, and he also will be shot.

When dawn breaks, the barn gates are opened and the prisoners are ordered to come out in the farm yard. When nobody comes out anymore, the SS guards walk inside, accompanied by the dogs. They find many men lying on the barn floor. Some died during the night, some are too ill to get up. The boy can hear very well, what takes place ten feet below him.

He hears the barking of the dogs, the gun shots, the screams of the dying men, then it is quiet...The death march continues, but the young man is not discovered. With no access to the loft, the dogs and the guards are not able to search it. The boy remains hidden throughout the following day. He is afraid in the event of being discovered by the farmer, he will be returned to the death march and killed. One the second day in hiding, the boy decides to come out. He slides down the pole and he is captured by the farmer. By now the SS guards are too far away and the farmer calls on some passing German Soldiers and he hands the boy over to them.

The soldiers escort him to a nearby town and to a train station. At this point the German Army is retreating and hundreds of soldiers and civilians are milling all over the station, trying to escape by train before the closing in American forces.

The chaos is maddening in the crowded station. The young man acts fast. A large group of civilians is standing in front of him. He takes a big step, and mingles with the crowd. The soldier escorting him is taken by surprise and unable to use the gun with all the people around.

The young man is free. He spends all day and all night among the crowd. The following day, American forces enter the town and he is finally liberated.

By now you probably guessed. I was the young man I just told you about.